


Fog Matters To You and Me, But It Can't Touch Sherlock Holmes

by HarveyWallbanger



Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Aren't you glad?, Drunk Sex, Gen, If this were Homestuck I'd call this black rom but it's not, M/M, middle-aged dudes- doin it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-11
Updated: 2013-07-11
Packaged: 2017-12-19 05:13:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/879850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's not a detective- no matter what he thinks he's deduced.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fog Matters To You and Me, But It Can't Touch Sherlock Holmes

**Author's Note:**

> I've always thought of this as taking place after season three, but if the reader likes, it could take place at any point after Buchan goes to work in the archive.  
> I am not associated with the making of Whitechapel, and this school is not associated with the making of Whitechapel. I am not making any money from this. The title comes from the song Sherlock Holmes, by Sparks.

This is the way it is now. Every night, Miles lingers at the station, until someone makes a comment- pointed or ostensibly well-meaning- about his need for rest. It's never Chandler who says these things, now. This late in the day, all of the other voices have blended together. It's white noise. Miles will say something snarky, and drag himself around as slowly as he can, as though out of spite, creating loose ends just to kill a few moments tying them. No matter how late he stays, Chandler remains in his office, a silhouette in a lit box. A bell in its tower.   
Then, Miles goes to the pub. He drinks until his eyes begin to close. He makes his way outside, and more often than not falls sleeps in his car. By the time he actually gets home, the kids have gone to school, and Judy has finally gone to sleep, or is too busy with the baby to reproach him.  
Tonight, he's staying out of the squad room. He isn't hiding. He's just putting off the inevitable a while longer than usual. At night, without the people and noise and bright lights, the station seems older and heavier. The things he sees during the day take on a different cast at night; a kind of mystery. He shakes his head. It's not mystery. It's just his eyes and his mind getting older, leading him down obscure and ridiculous corridors, literally and figuratively.  
Without fully realizing it, he's made his way to the basement. It's shouldn't surprise him that there's still a light on down there, and it doesn't. He only starts because his eyes had adjusted to the relative dimness of the rest of the building. Of course Buchan is still there. Poring over that archive of his that no one in their right mind would give a shit about. Trying to relate things that haven't even happened yet to hundred-year-old events no one much cared about at the time. As though criminals thought about things that way, like artists drawing inspiration from those who came before them. Every once in a while, you get one like that, but they're a random nutter; criminals might be timeless in their predictability, but each one is unique. History has no place in police work. It's a distraction- not unlike Chandler's courses. As though all that useless information ever kept anyone safe.  
If Miles leans against the door jamb, it's just because he's tired. Not sufficiently tired to sleep; he just needs to take the weight off of his feet for a moment. If he stares at Buchan, knelt on the floor like a supplicant, elbow-deep in one of his boxes of files, it's because he just needs to rest his eyes. Soon, he'll pick himself up and move. He'll go back upstairs, do a bit of work, engage in the same back-and-forth he does every night, go to the pub, go to his car, go to sleep. His night has already happened; it's just a matter of getting from one point in time to the next.  
"Oh. I didn't see you there," Buchan says as he stands, straightens and wipes the dust from himself, "What can I help you with, Sergeant Miles?"  
"Do you stay here this late every night?"  
"It's addictive, looking into the past with the knowledge of the present. I'm afraid that I lose track of time," Buchan adjusts his glasses, "Which is rather fitting."  
"Do you want to go for a drink?"  
"Well, I'm afraid that I have gotten rather behind, side-tracked by the-"  
"Forget about it," he says, trying to sound neither relieved nor offended. He's not sure how successful he is in either respect. It was a stupid thing to say. He's not even sure why he said it.  
"No, no," Buchan raises a hand, "I should stop for today. Too much work can dull the mental faculties. I'll just get my things."  
As Buchan fusses about, moving like an engineer shutting down a machine, Miles leans against the wall outside. Soon, he'll need to rest. But not yet.

He can't take Buchan to his regular, so Miles lets him suggest a place. They seem to know Buchan, there, and somehow, that makes it even worse. Explaining Buchan would have been awkward and unpleasant, but the idea of Buchan explaining him later, when he isn't there to defend himself, is painful.  
"Is this where you come, when you're not doing whatever it is you do all night in the basement?"  
"Not as much as I used to," Buchan says over his drink, "I've been neglecting my quiz night." He gives Miles one of those insufferable smiles, like he's having you on, and you're never going to figure out the joke.  
"Must be nice, being among your own. Y'know, clever people. People who can rattle off the history of the hat pin."  
"They're quite fascinating, actually, hat pins. They were the mace of their day: self-defense for the modern woman on the go." He makes a stabbing gesture. He takes a drink, swallows. "Why are you here, Sergeant?"  
Miles runs a hand over his face. His eyes are beginning to ache. "For Christ's sake. Call me Ray."  
"Why are you here, Ray?"  
"Why do you spend your time cataloging hundreds of years of human misery?"  
"I'm an historian. And you haven't answered my question."  
"I can't go home, and I can't spend all night at the station."  
"I see."  
"No, you don't. You don't see. You think you know what it's like, being a detective, because you've read some books, but you don't."  
"I've written books, as well," Buchan replies serenely.  
Miles goes on, as though Buchan hadn't spoken. It's safer that way. If he ignores the diversions, he can't be thrown off-guard. "You think you know so much, that you know more than us, than those of us who have actually seen crime, experienced it, but you don't. You don't know anything, and you're a fool to think that you're here for any reason other than the D.I.'s amusement and pity."  
Buchan regards his drink, then finishes it. “While I certainly think that what I contribute is not without merit, I see myself as only a part of something much larger than myself. I am a small man, Miles. I recognize myself as such. Any efforts to put me in my place are wasted." He fixes his eyes on Miles'. "Would you like another drink?"  
"Yes. Please," Miles adds, because there's no point, now, in being impolite.  
"Good. I shall return."  
He's getting his second wind. A nervous, fitful energy fills him, and he doesn't know what to do with it. Luckily, Buchan is there with another drink to douse it.  
"It may amuse you to hear this," Buchan says as he sits, "but I wish to redeem myself. I know that I've behaved foolishly in the past. 'Pride goeth before the fall'- only, it hasn't been my own fall, but that of people who might have been saved if I hadn't been so rigid in my thinking. I am but a visitor in your world, and it has been difficult adjusting to that undiscovered country."  
"You wouldn't be so difficult to take if you weren't so…" Miles grimaces, "you."  
"I can scarcely be someone else."  
"Yeah, but you can tone it down. You don't have to be all yourself all of the time. You, you know-" he waves his hand, leaving Buchan to fill in the blank.  
"Hide things. Keep secrets."  
"Yeah, only not as dire as that."  
"Does it work?"  
"Some people don't have so much to hide."  
Buchan raises his eyebrows. "Or they think they don't, or that they're doing a better job of concealing it than they actually are."  
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"  
"I thought it was fairly self-evident."  
Miles frowns. "Are you accusing me of something?"  
"Not in the least. Of what could I possibly accuse you?"  
"Well, you're making some pretty heavy-handed insinuations. If you think something, just spit it out. This," Miles jabs a finger in Buchan's direction, "is part of that superior air you give off. Acting like you know everyone's secrets."  
"When have I ever acted as though I know everyone's secrets?"  
"You're doing it now."  
"I am not."  
"And you can't even admit to it," Miles laughs.  
"If I've offended you in some way, I can only apologize, but I haven't intentionally done so. If I behave in the way you say I do, it's totally unconscious."  
Miles clears his throat, looks down. "All right."  
"There's obviously something bothering you, and perhaps you don't want me to know what it is, but I certainly don't mean to insinuate that I have some insight into your private business. What I said earlier was meant in the vaguest sense possible. We all have secrets, parts of ourselves that we hide, and sometimes they reveal themselves in ways that others cannot help but notice. We're all afraid of something, and it sometimes makes us clumsy. We give ourselves away, clumsily."  
"How do you give yourself away?"  
Buchan looks into his glass, now empty. "Ah. If I'm going to attempt to answer that, I shall need another drink."  
"Here," Miles says, and hands Buchan some money without seeing how much it is. "Another for me, too. Please."  
"I shall return."  
The room is dissolving into soft, bright shapes, like his fish when they're just below the water's surface. And then, when he puts out his hand to feed them, they raise their heads, emerging in perfect detail. As does Buchan when he comes back with the drinks.  
"To answer your question, I give myself away constantly. I'm terrified of being wrong; the very things you find most irritating about me are meant as camouflage."  
"Everyone's wrong sometimes."  
"You don't enjoy it, though, do you? And in our line of work, it's not just humiliating; it's deadly."  
The 'our' irritates only belatedly; it takes a moment for Miles to remember to be bothered by it. "So, you shut up, listen, and learn. No one knows what to do from the beginning."  
"Some do."  
Miles snorts. "Yeah, well, we can't all be D.I. Chandler, can we?"  
"It never bothers you that he always seems to have all of the answers?"  
Miles closes his eyes and massages his brow with the heel of his hand. When he opens his eyes again, Buchan is staring at him. "It irritates the hell out of me, actually. It irritates the hell out of me that even when he's wrong, it's for the right reasons, and when he makes a mistake, you can't even really be angry at the bastard because there's no one who hates him at that moment more than he hates himself. You can't wish failure on him, because when he really fails, it's going to be catastrophic, and it'll probably kill him."  
"You obviously care very much for him." That Buchan says it with such sympathy, such understanding just makes it worse.  
"And you don't?" Miles spits, "He's not one of your romantic ideals, personified? Your heart doesn't skip a beat every time he looks at you, talks to you, summons you from the basement to bore us all to tears?"  
"He's a romantic ideal, period. He's not difficult to idealize, to become attracted to."  
"Some of us don't take it that far."  
"If you say so."  
"I do say so. I'm- it's not like that, at all." He closes his eyes, opens them again. "Jesus. Get me another drink. Please."  
"I don't think I should."  
"Fine. I'll get it, myself. Same for you?"  
"Nothing for me, please."  
He gets Buchan another, anyway. If he didn't, the contrary prick would probably decide he wanted it the second Miles sat down. Buchan makes a face when he sees it, but takes a sip. Miles smirks. "You pretend to be so far above it all, but you're just like the rest of us. You want things you can't have. You're made of flesh and blood."  
"I never claimed otherwise," Buchan says softly.  
"Yeah, but you act it, and you," Miles unbuttons the collar of his shirt against the sudden bloom of heat on his throat, "you're just as transparent as you think the rest of us are."  
Just then, someone Buchan knows walks by. Buchan looks down, smiles in a pained sort of way, and waves them on. Somehow, it's jarring; it shakes Miles back into himself. He's giving too much away.  
"I'm going to the loo," Miles mutters, and rises, leaning against the table. Buchan raises a hand, to offer support, and Miles raises his own, to reject it.  
In the toilet, he splashes cold water on his face. His heart is pounding; he can feel it down to the soles of his feet. It's only Buchan, anyway; all he does is spew bullshit, in order to hear his own voice. Anything he says, to Miles, or to anyone else, is just more of that; lucky guesses and self-congratulation. He's not a detective. No matter what he thinks he's deduced.  
At the table, Buchan is gathering his things. "I should be going," he says. He's sitting, and Miles is standing. As though part of an absurd dance, Miles then sits, and Buchan stands.  
"Don't," Miles says, before he can stop himself..  
"I can't imagine why you'd want to spend a moment longer in my company."  
"You say that, but I know it's you who wants to get away from me. I say things I shouldn't."  
"You do." Buchan sits again.  
"We're both here because we've nowhere else to go. I'm hiding from my wife and kids, and you're hiding from who knows what."  
"I'm hiding from nothing," Buchan says, rearranging his possessions around him, "There's nothing at home, and that's what I'm hiding from."  
"You live with your mum, don't you?"  
Buchan laughs. "That, in and of itself is something to hide from. That was cruel of me. Though, needless to say, I do not have a family to hide from. Anyway, she's visiting her sister, so I don't even have her to hide from."  
"What do you usually do, then?"  
"I stay in the archive, sometimes all night. You know that."  
"And no one throws you out."  
"Ah, but no one goes down there."  
"I'll have to try that some time. I usually just sleep in my car."  
Buchan makes one of those awful sympathetic faces.  
"No, no. Don't feel sorry for me. It's a practical solution to an impossible situation."  
"You could stay with me. There's a spare room-"  
"No, I couldn't."  
"It would be better than your car."  
"No."  
"All right. I did try."  
"Appreciated."  
"I'm afraid that I must take my leave of you, though," he pauses, and gestures toward the bar, “Shall I ask them to call you a cab?”  
"I have my car."  
"You're in no state to drive."  
"Neither are you, really."  
“I took a cab here, and I can walk home."  
"I don't think I'll be going far."  
Buchan frowns. "Well, I must be going."  
The palpitations return. It's not a heart attack. He doesn't think it is, anyway. "I'll walk you home," he says without thinking.  
"You really don't have to."  
"I know."  
"All right, then."  
As soon as he gets to his feet, he realizes how drunk he is. He actually sways, but manages to cover it. Buchan isn't looking very steady on his feet, either. As soon as they get outside, they sort of collide into each other. It's too much work to both separate himself from Buchan and stay vertical, so he stays as he is, half leaning on Buchan, with Buchan half leaning against him.  
"I don't usually drink this much," Buchan says.  
"I do."  
"You probably have good reason to."  
"Mmm," Miles hums flatly. Buchan can interpret that however he likes.  
He's got his arm around Buchan, now, though he isn't entirely sure how it happened. It was probably an automatic movement, part of keeping himself from falling over. Buchan is very close to him, giving off heat like a furnace against the night's damp chill, smelling of wool and drink and cologne and old paper. After a time, he notices that Buchan is holding onto him, too. If anyone sees them, they'll think that they're just a pair of old drunks. Which is more or less the truth.  
"You're not going to tell anyone what we talked about," Miles says.  
"If I recall correctly, our conversation consisted mainly of you insulting me, so, no, I'm not going to share its contents with anyone."  
"Not that. The rest."  
"There is nothing to tell."  
"No. There isn't. But don't tell anyone about it."  
"I can't imagine what you think I'd say." Buchan is beginning to slur his words a bit. Miles imagines he sounds the same way.  
"You say things. To Chandler. I know you speak to him."  
"I speak to him about cases. We aren't social acquaintances."  
"You've been out together."  
Buchan shakes his head. "That was to discuss cases. We aren't friends, not the way you think."  
"You'd like to be, though."  
"Don't start this again. Please. It's beneath us both. I'll say this, and then no more: we both have feelings- whatever shape those feelings take- for a man who does not return them- if not in nature, then in intensity. Neither of us is in any position to cast stones."  
That's when Miles kisses him. It takes him by surprise as much as it does Buchan. Then, it occurs to him that he's been thinking of doing this since they were in the bar- or hitting Buchan, the two impulses alternating, until the desire was one simply for nonspecific contact.  
He has it, now. Buchan's hands are on him- pushing or pulling, he can't really tell. Then, he feels Buchan's hand unfold across the back of his neck, so it's definitely pulling. Buchan's pulling him in closer. Their teeth knock together, and Miles tastes blood. When they pull away for a breath, he finds that he's cut his lip.  
"Apologies," Buchan says, breathlessly, "For the injury."  
"I've had worse."  
"We can't-"  
"No, you're right. We work together."  
"What I was going to say was that we can't do this here. They're very strict about loitering after a certain hour."  
"Oh."  
"Obviously, if you're not interested-"  
"Your house, then?"  
"It's not far, now."  
"Right."  
He can't put his arm around Buchan again, but he can't not do it, either. Buchan is the only thing holding him up. He's the only thing holding up Buchan.  
They crash into the house.  
"Do be quiet," Buchan whispers.  
"I thought your mum was away," Miles hisses.  
"Oh, yes, that's right," Buchan says in a normal tone of voice, "I'd forgotten."  
"Close the door. You're letting in the cold."  
"Ah, yes," Buchan says, closing the door. He turns on the light.  
"It's better in the dark."  
"We won't be able to see."  
Miles can't argue with that, but he swears and clenches shut his eyes when Buchan turns on the light. His eyes are still closed when he feels Buchan's hand on his face, not quite caressing, but soft. He pulls Buchan close, and kisses him again, in part to cut off whatever he might be about to say. They're against a wall, and Buchan sort of rolls them, so that it's Miles who has his back to the wall. Imagining the ache soon to develop in his spine, he knows he'll regret this in the morning. There's already a ghost of that pain, crashing up against the swell of pleasure he feels when Buchan pushes aside his shirt collar to kiss his neck. At the periphery of his awareness, he hears himself sighing. It's so far away that it might as well be another person doing it. Everything gets further away the more Buchan touches him. The world is retreating, and taking him with it. He takes Buchan's hand and places it between his legs.  
Buchan rubs, just enough to make it unpleasant when he ceases. Against Miles' ear, he says, "Do you think you can make it to my bedroom, or do you want to fuck right here?"  
"Jesus," Miles exhales. He's resting totally against the wall, splayed like a specimen. Buchan's pulled away, and he's close enough to reach for, but not close enough to touch. "Bedroom," he says.  
Buchan starts toward the stairs, nearly colliding with a table. After a moment, Miles follows him. He can still stop this, he tells himself with each step. He can still walk out the front door, go back to the bar, lock himself in his car and sleep. He can still go home tomorrow after work, talk to Judy, come up with solutions together to the problems they share. Some things might be a little strained, but he can still be more or less the man he's always been. He doesn't have to change. Nothing has to change.  
Before he can do any of this, he runs out of steps. He's in Buchan's bedroom, where Buchan has mercifully kept the light off.  
"You can still leave," Buchan says.  
"What makes you think I want to leave?"  
"I sense a certain amount of hesitancy."  
"It was me who came onto you."  
"You're extremely drunk."  
"So are you."  
Buchan makes a sympathetic face. "You're emotional."  
"No, I'm not."  
"You are."  
He follows the sound of Buchan's voice, and when he reaches him, he pushes Buchan in what he hopes is the direction of either the bed or a wall.  
"You're overwrought," Buchan says, in a soft voice, tripping over the 'r's.  
"That doesn't change anything," Miles murmurs. He pulls Buchan's jumper over his head, and then takes off his own jacket.  
"I don't want to be a substitute."  
Miles grits his teeth. He exhales roughly through his nose. "Everyone's a substitute for somebody."  
For just a moment, he lets himself think it, imagine it. Then, he shuts off the thought as though it were an appliance. They undress, and Buchan steers them over to the bed.  
With Buchan on top of him, solid and soft, kissing him and touching him with such regularity that it all seems to blend together, it's easy to flip the thought back on. Or, it turns on of its own accord, there in the dark, where it's all feeling and no sight, and Buchan could be anyone. Hell, he could be anyone, to Buchan. It wouldn't surprise him; Buchan has his face against Miles' neck, so neither of them can see the other. If Miles murmurs something out of place as they're tangled together, each pushing his way to his respective finish, essentially alone in this, he's probably just beaten Buchan to it.   
All the same, Miles tenses for a moment after he speaks. If Buchan's heard him, he gives no indication. In fact, he kisses Miles, both of them breathing heavily, clutching at each other, close to orgasm and over-sensitized to the point of desperation.   
That's when he actually does come, his mouth on Buchan's shoulder, now, careful to not bite too hard. A moment later, Buchan comes as well, surprisingly quietly. He's sticky, and sore, and beginning to feel the first pangs of sobriety, but he holds Buchan against him, runs a hand over the back of his neck, his shoulder. Kisses the top of his head in a show of sentimentality that he happily attributes to lingering drunkenness.  
He's beginning to doze when Buchan pulls away, leaving him exposed, cold. From very far away, Miles hears the sound of running water, and follows it. Buchan regards him with an unreadable expression, and moves aside so that Miles can clean up.  
The water running, Buchan says, "I heard you, you know."  
"Heard me when?"  
"When you said 'Joe'."  
He could deny it, but somehow that seems humiliating to him. He frowns. "If you heard me, why didn't you stop?"  
"Do you think you're the only one willing to settle for someone they don't really want?"  
He looks at Buchan, his mouth open and his face reddening as though Buchan had physically struck him.  
"Put on your trousers," Buchan says, "I'm calling you a cab."


End file.
